1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to component-based automation systems, and more particularly to a system and method for generating and implementing descriptions of components.
2. Discussion of Related Art
A trend in the automation industry has been to move away from central control architectures and towards distributed local units. End users of automation systems, system integrators, and original equipment manufactures (OEMs) are looking at ways and means to utilize the benefits of decentralized control and distributed automation in manufacturing processes.
Benefits for distributed automation include: immediate local processing of time sensitive signals and data leading to more efficient plant operation; improved design flexibility through the use of plug-and-play automation software and the utilization of different devices and different field bus technologies from different vendors; improved reuse of knowledge through the utilization of fully trusted stand-alone automation solutions in different plant configurations for different automation tasks; improved ability to handle changes to device configurations; and vertical integration of plant automation systems with the enterprise information technology (IT) infrastructure, etc.
An example of a distributed control system is shown in FIG. 1. The distributed parts of the control system include smart devices, such as pumps 101, valves 102, and sensors 103-104 that have built-in control functionality that can be linked by software to other peripherals, such as a human/machine interface (HMI) panel 105, temperature controllers 106, and soft-controllers 107 to enable control system functionality. For example, a pressure sensor 104 can be coupled by software to a valve actuator 102 and to the HMI panel 105 to display bar graph. A slider on the HMI panel 105 can be coupled via software to the set point of a PID (Proportional, Integral, Derivative) controller controlling the speed of a pump 101.
To facilitate decentralized control and distributed automation, the individual distributed field devices and applications need to communicate seamlessly irrespective of the manufacturers of the devices and systems, and irrespective of the field-bus technology that particular devices are designed for.
Therefore, a need exists for a system and method for generating and implementing descriptions of components in a component-independent automation system.